District not liable in student attack case |
On Board Online • June 10, 2013
By Pilar Sokol
Deputy General Counsel
A state appellate court has ruled that a school district was not liable for injuries sustained by a student when another pulled her to the ground by the hair and repeatedly punched her in the head in a hallway between classes.
Generally, a school district will be found liable when one of its students is intentionally harmed by another if the district could have reasonably anticipated the harm and failed to provide adequate supervision.
Although school officials in Conklin v. Saugerties CSD had been aware of rumors about a possible fight, the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, Third Department, found no liability, noting specific actions taken by school authorities and teachers in response to both rumors and the first punch. The court’s decision provides guidance for districts that might face a similar situation.
In Conklin school officials first heard of the possibility of a fight from a message left by the father of the student who ultimately was injured. He reported discovering disturbing comments when monitoring his daughter’s MySpace account. In response, an administrator returned the call before school the next morning and arranged for the school social worker to meet first thing in the morning with both students – first separately and then together. Throughout those meetings, the two students remained calm and denied any intention to fight each other.
In addition, the social worker arranged for the student who ultimately attacked the other to meet with the school resource officer, who discussed the criminal implications of assaulting another student, and the assistant principal, who discussed the disciplinary implications of fighting. That student continued to deny any intention to fight or having made any threats to do so.
The subsequent fight lasted between 30 to 60 seconds. When it started, two teachers located approximately 10 feet away from the girls started yelling at the offending student to stop, another ran to the nearby library and asked for someone to call the office. A fourth teacher who was in the library ran out to break up the fight, and a teaching assistant in a nearby room also ran to intervene.
A lower court denied the district’s motion asking it to dismiss a complaint that the district’s negligent supervision had caused the injured student’s injuries. The Third Department disagreed and granted the district’s request.
The evidence established that before meeting with the social worker, the girls had passed each other in the hall without incident. In addition, there was no evidence of prior similar conduct by the offending student that could also have made the attack foreseeable.
While the injured student said there had been three screaming matches prior to the attack as well as a name-calling incident between the girls, no teachers had witnessed these events. Furthermore, the offending student’s disciplinary file did not contain any fighting or violence referrals.
Under all of the above circumstances, the Third Department determined that the district reasonably responded to the rumor of a fight threat, found it unfounded and could not have anticipated the attack.